Always write things down

Having a John Deere mower sitting in my shed made me go look at his bio on the web. It doesn't mention about him having a brother, but maybe two sisters (births seem not to be registered at that time).
The old family story went like this-that John's brother (my gr, gr uncle supposedly) went to see him and that he was not interested in getting into the business and became disowned by John. I forget the name of the so-called brother, but William is standing out in my head, and that was John's father, so why couldn't he have a William, Jr. ? All I know is that my great grandmother was Lillian Deere and they decided to pronounce it 'Da-ray' like the Europeans. Gr grandmom was born in 1871, so that makes sense as the elder Deeres were born in around the 1840s. My relatives never had any big bucks either.